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Alliant buys 50% stake in EDF's 225MW Great Western wind farm

EDF Renewable Energy has sold a half-stake in its recently completed 225MW Great Western wind farm in Oklahoma to a unit of Alliant Energy, with the power contracted under a long-term deal with Google.

Alliant, the Madison, Wisconsin-based investor-owned utility holding company, will buy the 50% stake in Great Western through its unregulated Alliant Energy Finance unit, with EDF holding the remainder. It’s the first deal with Alliant for EDF-RE, which regularly sells stakes in projects to recycle the capital back into new developments.

Alliant owns stakes in several operating wind farms through its two regulated utilities in Iowa and Wisconsin, and last year it announced plans to buy as much as 700MW more wind over the next few years – 500MW of it already approved by Iowa regulators – to take advantage of the fading wind production tax credit.

EDF-RE, a major Vestas customer in the US, completed Great Western in late 2016 using a mix of the Danish OEM’s V117 (3.3MW) and V100 (2MW) turbines in Oklahoma’s Woodward and Ellis counties, located in the base of the state’s windy panhandle region.

Great Western has a long-term power purchase agreement with Google to fuel its data centres, which was announced during the COP21 climate talks in Paris in late 2015.

San Diego-based EDF-RE, owned by France’s EDF, is among North America’s leading renewables developers and operators, and among the largest players in wind O&M through its EDF Renewable Services unit.

EDF-RE recently launched a new business unit focused on distributed electricity and storage, and last month chief executive Tristan Grimbert was elected chairman of the board at the American Wind Energy Association.

The completion of Great Western, the 184MW Kelley Creek in Illinois, and a smaller wind farm in New Mexico last year made EDF-RE the fourth-largest developer of new US wind capacity in 2016, according to data compiled by AWEA.

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Alliant buys 50% stake in EDF's 225MW Great Western wind farm

EDF Renewable Energy has sold a half-stake in its recently completed 225MW Great Western wind farm in Oklahoma to a unit of Alliant Energy, with the power contracted under a long-term deal with Google.

Alliant, the Madison, Wisconsin-based investor-owned utility holding company, will buy the 50% stake in Great Western through its unregulated Alliant Energy Finance unit, with EDF holding the remainder. It’s the first deal with Alliant for EDF-RE, which regularly sells stakes in projects to recycle the capital back into new developments.

Alliant owns stakes in several operating wind farms through its two regulated utilities in Iowa and Wisconsin, and last year it announced plans to buy as much as 700MW more wind over the next few years – 500MW of it already approved by Iowa regulators – to take advantage of the fading wind production tax credit.

EDF-RE, a major Vestas customer in the US, completed Great Western in late 2016 using a mix of the Danish OEM’s V117 (3.3MW) and V100 (2MW) turbines in Oklahoma’s Woodward and Ellis counties, located in the base of the state’s windy panhandle region.

Great Western has a long-term power purchase agreement with Google to fuel its data centres, which was announced during the COP21 climate talks in Paris in late 2015.

San Diego-based EDF-RE, owned by France’s EDF, is among North America’s leading renewables developers and operators, and among the largest players in wind O&M through its EDF Renewable Services unit.

EDF-RE recently launched a new business unit focused on distributed electricity and storage, and last month chief executive Tristan Grimbert was elected chairman of the board at the American Wind Energy Association.

The completion of Great Western, the 184MW Kelley Creek in Illinois, and a smaller wind farm in New Mexico last year made EDF-RE the fourth-largest developer of new US wind capacity in 2016, according to data compiled by AWEA.